One year on: what the APP evaluation found

The UK’s first-year evaluation of its authorised push payment reimbursement rules offers evidence that reimbursement can improve while fraud falls. But the protections are limited by who qualifies and which payments are covered—and they do not, by themselves, settle the case for protection across borders.

What happened

A first-year evaluation of the UK’s APP reimbursement requirement reported a 21% fall in APP fraud and an increase in reimbursement from 54% to 65%.

The UK APP reimbursement requirement took effect on 7 October 2024, with reimbursement of up to £85,000 per claim for consumers, micro-enterprises and charities.
Sending and receiving payment service providers share reimbursement costs equally; international payments are excluded from the UK scheme.
The first-year evaluation reported that APP fraud fell by 21%, while reimbursement increased from 54% to 65%.

What it means for small businesses

The UK results suggest a reimbursement regime can be associated with both more reimbursements and lower APP fraud, but the evaluation figures do not show that every affected business is covered or made whole.

Eligibility, payment route and country matter: the UK scheme is limited in scope, while EU rules require verification of payee and owners elsewhere should check the protections that apply to them.

Owners can reduce avoidable risk by independently verifying changed payment details, acting quickly when fraud is suspected and keeping evidence to support a recall or claim.